The Modular Building Institute (MBI), the national organization advancing the work of the modular construction industry, bestowed an important honor on Portland State University’s groundbreaking SAGE (Smart Academic Green Environment) Classroom project on March 15 at the MBI’s 2015 Awards of Distinction in Las Vegas. The SAGE Classroom was recognized for its installations in the Edmonds, Wash., school district, winning First Prize in the Relocatable Education under 10,000 Square Feet category, and the SAGE Classroom that is now part of the Corvallis Waldorf School earned Honorable Mention in the highly competitive Green Building category…

Portland State University architecture professors Margarette Leite and Sergio Palleroni saw the need for a healthier, greener modular classroom when their daughter attended class in one at her school. They brought the challenge to their architecture and engineering students at PSU, who came up with design ideas, met with officials, and pushed the project forward to see the SAGE—Smart Academic Green Environment—modular classroom built and launch in the marketplace in fall 2014…

What started out as an exercise at a Portland State University architecture symposium has turned into a potential game-changer in modular classroom design at a time when school districts are increasingly using the cheap alternative to new construction.

PSU’s architecture program over more than a year worked closely with a modular manufacturer to balance environmental sustainability and affordability, resulting in the SAGE classroom — acronym for Smart Academic Green Environment. The modular classroom is made with recyclable materials and more windows at a relatively low cost…

Two Portland State University Architecture professors will unveil the first prototype of their new affordable, healthy, energy-efficient modular classroom Nov. 14 at Greenbuild 2012 in San Francisco, the world’s largest green-building expo…

GERVAIS, Ore. — This tiny farm-country community is having a back-to-school sale, on the schools themselves…Three of the five school buildings in the district — all six miles or more from town, holdovers from a time when rural districts like this built a little school every few miles — were put on the market…This summer, Gervais district officials contacted an architecture team at Portland State University that has been working on new designs for mobile classrooms [as part of an Oregon Solutions project], incorporating green building standards like improved natural light, air circulation and energy efficiency into modular school construction, which has surged all over the country as schools have tried to control costs. The Gervais project will be one of the first to use the new designs.

A pair of architects at Portland State University is turning their eco-friendly designs to a multi-billion national industry: portable classrooms. The state of Oregon is supporting their work, recognizing a green solution to the burgeoning portable school expansion may have implications for both public schools and the economy.